My humble translation of Limites, by Borges
Limits
There is a line of Verlaine I will never remember
There is another street I can no longer walk down
There is a face in the mirror I have seen for the very last time
There is a door that is closed until the end of the world.
Among the books of my library (I am seeing them now)
There are some that will never be read.
This summer I will be fifty:
Death consumes me, constantly.
---Jorge Luis Borges
Comments:
Oh yes. Lovely. A personal anthology should be in everyone's home. I'll never forget getting a copy for a gift as a teen and then trippin because when I had been trippin, I'd been watching "Performance" where Borges appears at a few pivotal points and never forgetting his face and the poems they read in the film so I recognized the book instantly.
http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2006/04/09/borges-in-performance...
Wow. I don't want to give away the film if you have yet to see it (HIGHLY recommended) but from a web page I just found out that the co-director Donald Cammell upon checking out of this world stated: "I don't see Borges yet..."
Heavy.
Hello. I have posted a comment on your blog once before. I mostly lurk around here, reading the blog and reading the responses of others to your observations. Thank you for putting "Limits" on your blog. To me, it's a "life's transition" poem. I will turn 40 this coming March. In my 30's, I felt my blank-staring, pie-in-the-sky youth and innocence coming to an end. Many doors closed, and many doors opened. I've had to learn what to work hard for - and what to leave behind: people, jobs, dreams, etc. Space and time are huge. The world is a big place, and it will kill whimsy. It's inevitable. It's a "culling away" in the 30's. That's the way it is. My body and mind have changed. My plans and goals. Forever. And it feels...just fine.
I hope I'm not rambling. Am I making sense?
Growing up will always be bittersweet, but it it also empowering.
As an Argentine and poet, I have always felt a strong connection to Borges. I think you did a graceful job translating him. Thank you for posting this.
Read his poem "Instants". It seems very straightforward but I don't know if I'm missing the essence of the poem because of something that happened in his life that he regretted very much. By the way, I do have to annotate this poem, so any thoughts about the poem will be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
He had almost won the nobel prize in literature. The garden of forking paths though was his best
Borges was an amazing writer.
It's very fun to see that poem written in English, could poens will transleate from languaje to languaje and be the same poem.Really?
Borges always brought up special feeling to me...Great poet!
Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine! He was not only a writer but also a poet, a critic and a good librarian who obviously makes him very good in his literature. I still remember the days when I used to learn his poems in my literature classes. In those days it seemed very interesting. Now when I read this poem all those teenage memories waved into me. The translation depicted here seems to be very good and I should say this is a definitely a different as well as interesting post!
Jorge Louis Borges, an Argentine writer and a poet wrote this poem limits. The poem seems to have been translated very lucidly. This poem may seem very ordinary but trust me it isn't. The poem has a very good deep meaning and it will be more interesting once the reader understands what the poem is all about. After all this poem will always be in the hearts of the readers once they gets the inner meaning lurking inside the poem.
Great poet! The poem has a deep meaning! Thanks for posting this.
Limits was my favorite poem when I was in my college days. What I liked the most about the poem was the inner meaning it had inside. However we were told entirely differently from what it really meant. And unfortunately we believed it to be true and kept it away from time and criticism so that nothing could make it fade away from my heart. However i came to know the real meaning just recently and It took me some time to engulf it. However I got happier now that i had known what it really meant and to see it here translated is just so cool!
What, this poem make me think.I usually don' t take attention to poems, but this one arrives to my soul.
Thanks!
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